Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Welcome to the February Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting Essentials

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared the parenting essentials they could not live without. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

I have the advantage of reading several submissions before writing my own post (for I am a procrastinator), and I felt like all my good ideas for parenting essentials would come across as merely piggybacking off of other people's posts — or just blatantly stealing their sentiments.

For instance, do I have a fabulous and supportive partner? Indeed I do. And indeed that partner did outright suggest I write about him. (Sorry, Sam. You'll have to make do with last February's post.)

But even though Sam found himself scorned, he graciously helped me compile a list of other, less mentionable parenting essentials. With tongue firmly in cheek, I present them:

Tivo. This was a hard one to narrow down, because it's really a combination of a television set, the Tivo box we were gifted from a friend, money to pay for the service, and the invention of electricity that made this sweet collaboration possible. Thank goodness we can now watch endless episodes of Max and Ruby that make my son forget he can speak more than one word at a time (if you've ever seen an episode, you'll understand that he's channeling Max, his monosyllabic hero), at a moment's notice, and skip all those gosh-dang obnoxious commercials they put even on kids' stations. (Seriously, mascara companies and cash loans? Your target audience is preschoolers?)

Uh oh, he figured out the remote.

Kid-friendly restaurants. Because sometimes we just need a break, and we need the kind of fine dining establishments that don't kick us out when our child sits this direction in a booth, or bat an eye when we order a quesadilla — but with the shredded cheese on the side, and neither it nor the tortilla warmed in any way. Because heaven forfend anyone present our three-year-old with the desecration of melted cheese! I kid you not, some of the owners even smile when they see us approach, bless their hearts.

If it has ice cream, all the better.

Craigslist. For where else would I have found, after three years of resistance (both babywearing-commitment-related and frugality-centered), a decent umbrella stroller for an affordable price that's actually tall enough for both Sam and me to push without stooping like Igor? We still have our babywearingmoments, but this three-and-a-half-year-old is heavy, and he's so far refused all attempts to become self-propelled. (Acorn, tree, relative distance, etc.) He'll often pipe up after riding in a shopping cart for twenty minutes, "Whew! I'm so tired from all this walking! Are you, Mama?" with nary a hint of self-awareness. We've told him he'll have to share the stroller once the baby hits a year old and he'll be five. I don't think he believes us.

Since we somehow have no pictures of our new stroller, here's a picture illustrating that the ERGO still comes in handy when traveling with Mr. No Walk.

The library. Because I need stacks of unread books teetering on end tables and, despite never having been read, losing themselves the very day they are due for return and I've exhausted all renewals. I used to stand behind patrons in line who were paying $12 or higher bills for their library fines and silently gawking at what horrible people they must be not to be able to return their books on time. It wasn't hard, after all! Oh, payback, you silly, silly thing. Now I know all those people were parents. I also need a place to take Mikko that has as its very atmospheric essence a hushed and studious ambience. Because he fits in so well. He swoops up the stuffed animals from the children's section, parading them over to the catalog computers, where he hogs a seat and scribbles with the golf pencils on every piece of scratch paper and, without fail, brings up the blue screen of death on at least one computer. And I stand in line with my next armload of never-to-be-cracked books and pretend I don't know him.

Far from discouraging him, they gave him his own card.

A smartphone. Because if I have to stand in the aisle of Target for two hours while Mikko inspects every last boxed toy that has buttons next to "Try me!" stickers, and am not able to check my email or Tweet funny things or play Sims 3, I might just lose it.

It even works to amuse the young'un!

Loud electronic toys. I assumed we would never have these — that no one would be cruel enough to gift them to us, and that we would certainly never choose to buy a battery guzzler. Ah, but I am willing to forgo the peace of absolute quiet when I have the relative peace of a preschooler engrossed for ten blessed minutes in pressing buttons to see what new squawking and screeching noise will come out next.

Thomas the Train remote control overshadowing boy both visually and auditorily.

Oh, did I wake all the neighbors with my new toy?

Car keys. Not because of the actual car that's attached, but because the keys themselves are so dang thrilling, apparently, from birth on.

White carbs and cheese. For otherwise, my son would starve, and then what sort of parent would I be?

Crocs. Because otherwise, I might have to teach my son to tie laces. Bah.

His style choice.

Balloons. Enough said.

That's my list of parenting not-so-essentials but highly-neededs-and-appreciated. What are yours?

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon February 8 with all the carnival links.)

Not Without Him — The love Starr at Taking Time shares with her husband is the foundation of her parenting.

I Cannot Imagine Parenting Without B(.)(.)bs — From an uneducated dreamer to a breastfeeding mother of a toddler, nursing has forever changed Kristy at Strings to Things's relationship with her daughter and her outlook on life.

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comments:

Would you believe we don't have Tivo? I don't even know how it works. I'm one of *those* people - someday Kieran will be trying to teach me how to work a remote and will roll his eyes and say "oh come ON mama!"

;)

Really though - my library card is one of the essentials. We are there every.single.week for story time and checking out books/videos. I have a picture of Kieran from before he could crawl reaching for books at the library - he is truly my book worm :)

Bless those kid-friendly restaurants! And a close second are the noisy restaurants that don't notice toddler noise among the din of their normal patrons. Our favorite is to go to Buffalo Wild Wings during any kind of college game - food tossing and randoms whoops and hollers fit in just fine.

We've been taking weekly trips to the library since my son was about six months old - I love living a block from the library - and I can't wait for him to be old enough to participate in some of the story time programs. Soon. Too soon.

I am right there with you on my tivo-equivalent. Goodness knows without a stash of 20 episodes of Sesame Street or Word World on demand at any given hour (hello, 5:30am) I would never make it out the door to work in the morning with my kid and my home in one piece.

I definitely agree that the library and Craigslist are essentials! We go to the library at least every other day. And any time I really need something, it's either Craigslist or Ebay. I hate buying new.

Oh man, this was hilarious! You cracked me up all the way through. Thanks for lightening the mood of the carnival a bit.

I would like to nominate Netflix instant play for the list of essentials. Since we don't have cable (gasp!) or Tivo, it's the main way we watch things these days. I've spent SO many hours on the couch nursing (and cuddling and rocking and bouncing...) my cranky baby while watching endless seasons of crime dramas. Yep, can you picture it? That's my life! =D

Love, love, love how your blog keeps it real! Sometimes I think of natural parenting blogs as so strict in their parenting methods, which isn't a bad thing, but the reality is we're living in a different world now with Tivo, smart phones, the Internet, etc. It's fun to read how to incorporate those things in your life as well as the natural parenting principles.

I remember that you reviewed the documentary-movie Babies. I was able to watch it on the plane last fall, and it was a comfort to see the parents in Japan, and the other parents too, let their baby lie on the floor while they watch TV, or kinda ignoring them as they played or got into their stuff. I know that Julia's (my daughter, on my blog I call her Edel) first year of life would have been pretty boring, and that's alright!

Love it! Craigslist, Freecycle and the local moms lists (mainstream one for my part of town, plus Holistic Moms and others) have been key.

We recently canceled Direct TV to save money. Now that my husband watches sports live on the weekends, my preschooler has started saying, "I like commercials." Egads! I don't think it's worth the savings!

I second the smartphone essential! I just discovered all the toddler apps out there to give me those 5 more minutes when I'm at the grocery store and my 2 year old is losing it. He's also become quite the Angry Birds player too! Thanks for sharing - awesome list!

Hahahahaha! Cheese and processed white flour products! Yes! So true. Although it is kind of fun throwing some broccoli or peas into the mac & cheese just so you can watch your baby carefully pick out each veggie, *lick* the cheese off it, and put it aside. It's a fascinating and entertaining process.

Ug, I want my TV to go away! Actually, if there was a way to make it work for just 30 minutes a day, we'd be great. Now it's just a crutch.

I guess some of my parenting essentials would be of course things like the baby sling when he was a baby, and our Baby Bjorn potty has gotten quite a lot of use out of it. The library is a godsend. I'm with you on the books and online community, as well as the good friends I've made in person.

I think hugely important to me is the outdoors--the fact that we have a backyard, a park up the road, a field behind our neighborhood, a hiking trail nearby, and pretty close is the aquatic center, and the jump house, and not too far we have the children's museum, and OMSI (another museum where he can play), and the zoo, and more trails...basically anything that helps me get him out of the house to burn some energy and stimulate his mind. So yeah, I guess that's my parenting essential.

@Inder-ific They are masterful at getting out the pieces they don't want, aren't they? Sometimes I'll try to sneak an onion string into his noodle pile (at a teriyaki place) or call cauliflower "white broccoli," because he loves broccoli. He never falls for it! :) Yesterday he was eating mac & cheese that were bug shapes (his fave), and he picked the one out that was a shell that had accidentally been mixed in and gave it to me to dispose of. "I can't like that." Seriously?! How does he even see these things?

Oh I so want to call cheating! lol I wanted to read other entries before I typed up my very first Carnival entry!

I'd just like to add that I can SOOO relate to the overdue library books! I can never seem to crack a book and I'll get a bunch of them to... NOT read. Ugh. At least my library lets us pay our fees online now! No one has to SEE me pay them. heh

As for the fines for overdue books, guilty, guilty, guilty! I wasn't allowed to check out any more books until I paid my $15.25 fine this week! I blame the mayor for budget cuts that have resulted in the library's being closed on Mondays, which used to be the best day for going to the library, alas.

I love this!! Hey, when they say it takes a village, I don't think they only mean people (whomever "they" are!!) We also swore we'd never have electronic toys, my best friend, however, felt otherwise and we now this horrible annoying singing monstrosity that drives Ben and I nuts...however Ella loves it, and so it became her special "car toy" - she is entertained and screams less, and I can turn up my own music to drown-out the uber-annoying singing!!

I love this list! (I read it before, but didn't get a chance to rely, sorry!)

I would have to say I totally agree on many points! and I know if I ever got an smartphone I would never be able to get rid of it again! lol

and oh goodness I agree about kid-friendly resturaunts!!

I might also add kid nail polish - it makes clipping nails SO much easier! and chap stick... they play with that stuff forever thinking it's lipstick and that they're so grown up! lol (at 2 and 4years)

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Riding the rails with my husband, Crackerdog Sam, and our hobo kids, Mikko Lint Picker (born June 2007), Alrik Irontrousers (born May 2011), and Karsten (born October 2014). Trying every day to parent intentionally and with grace.